


Wash Away

by Cake and Pi (Tarrin)



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Child Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:16:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarrin/pseuds/Cake%20and%20Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s more than one way to die</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wash Away

Red.

Red like coral but not underwater where it should be.

Red like coral, and blood so thick it ran black, and a cry.

It was desperate, pleading, screaming for something; something needed, wanted.

It begged, that keening wail, for something he couldn’t give.

Wouldn’t give.

He couldn’t remember what.

Couldn’t remember anything, except for the red and the black and the screaming. It was clearest in his dreams, where he couldn’t ignore it.

In time, even the dreams faded, and all he had left was the memory of a memory. All he had left was an odd, intense shame that he had forgotten, and a strange certainty that his daughter, his dear daughter, would not forgive him despite his return.

And that scared him, more than having to part with her ever had, because he knew she had not hated him then.

Yet now that he was free from Fate, from Nabu, with no memory of how…

He couldn’t be sure if he hadn’t done… something.

Something terrible and reprehensible.

Something he might not want to remember.

He wasn’t sure if he shouldn’t hate himself.

* * *

It had happened so fast, the attack; she remembered the palace crumbling about her, the waters turning a deep, swirling red when the walls fell too fast. She remembered the strain of her muscles as she swam faster than she ever had but still too slow, far too slow. The tiny, young royal body that disappeared under tons of stone, how the red seeped out from the rocks that had crushed him.

It ought to have been accompanied by silence. Or have meant a pause in the fighting.

It stayed loud, and no one paused. No one, not even her, and she had immediately changed course to come to her queen’s and king’s defense.

The enemy had attacked in overwhelming numbers, taking the palace by surprise. They’d chosen their timing badly though; another two hours and Kaldur would have been back on the surface, not dining with his friends and monarchs. Another two hours and the king and queen would have retired to their rooms, and the guards would have been in the middle of switching shifts.

Another two hours, and Tula would have retired to her own room with Garth - a new room, one that did not yet feel like home but would become home. Would have become home, if it weren’t now so much rubble. She herself would have been dead with Garth, not alive to gulp in water and hold Garth’s and Kaldur’s and their prince’s deaths at bay.

She could not let her sorrow drown her until her queen and king were safe.

And even that had been stolen from her.

There’d been a terrible overwhelming pain, and then blackness.

That she hadn’t died, that the oblivion that had taken her was replaced with pain and heat and dryness had been hard enough to deal with.

That someone had found her beached, broken body and nursed her back to health, was sheer cruelty.

She had begged, pleaded her so-called helper to end this, to leave her to the sun’s drying heat. To cast her into the water so she could drown her sorrows properly. They hadn’t, and she might have hurt them for it if she’d had the strength.

They had stayed too long though, and she had healed enough to make proper arguments.

She knew how Nabu had wanted to keep Kaldur when he’d donned the Helmet of Fate. Given the circumstances behind Giovanni Zatara putting on the helmet, she guessed that he spent part of the time fighting Nabu for control.

She’d been right.

People often forgot that water magic wasn’t her only skill. That alone would not have been enough for her to be part of Queen Mera’s favored social circle, though it had been a tempered favor while Tula had been a student.

She had not been a student for a few years now.

He had made some nonsense argument about how she had so much to look forward to. It had taken all her restraint not to laugh in his face - how could there be anything to live for, with her prince buried before he turned three, with her love and best friend buried with him? How could she show her face before her queen and king again?

She took the helmet.

And because she knew he would fight her decision to let the identity of Doctor Fate overwhelm her, she took his memories of these days before she left. She would become Fate and leave her identity as Tula behind. Since she hadn’t been left for dead as she wished, she’d simply die another way. All the loved ones that would have breathed in pure water and drowned in their grief for her were already dead, after all.


End file.
